Familiarity Breeds Contempt ? Is Techno Losing Its Edge ?

[System 47]

Originally Posted by System 47
Same reason people chat about the weather in the UK, to make conversation.

^^^ is that why we live in such a banal society ? ppl constantly stating the obvious as opposed to saying something worthwhile.. but then, i guess ppl would have to THINK for THEMSELVES in that case.. and where would be then eh ;)

It'd definitely be more interesting mate. Maybe you can start a more intelligent/worthwhile Techno thread on BOA and get the ball rolling?


^^^ in response to this request ^^^





is it, as many ppl believe, jus 'not as good' or is it because ppl become more demanding as they become more familiar ?

personally, i dont think the music has moved backwards or stalled. there are still good artists, labels, clubs & outfits making things happen. the mechanism is changing with digital tools & distribution. its easier to access the kit to make music than ever before & a few clicks sends your track off around the world..

so where do YOU stand ? was it really 'better back in 97' or is it that the same tired cry of ppl who jus moved on min their musical tastes ?



D I S C U S S

[DannyBlack]

Techno to me has lost it's shine, it's balls and overall, it's appeal. Well for me that is.

It just doesn't excite me as much as it used to. Can I blame that on the extreme amount of mass-produced Ueberschall pack-esque tracks? Yes, somewhat.

Also I put it down to my taste evolving past that. I recently gave up making Techno. I had a whole load of tracks either finished or nearly, but what the ****- where's it going to get me? Nowhere.

I still love Techno (pre-2007) and will continue to buy it and play it but as it goes- it's time to part ways.

[teknorich]

Techno is definitely more accessible than ever before, with tools for music production / digital mixing software available to everyone now, and with every mp3 store from itunes to Tesco selling Techno tracks, but yeah, somehow it can sometimes seem less exciting, less interesting nowadays...

Maybe you are right; that familiarity breeds contempt, and because it is so easy now, a lot of people who in the past would only have made up the audience of the club are now trying to be producers and DJs. We are now able to be much more part of the scene, not just the audience, so maybe we demand more, or refuse to settle for less like we might have in the past? Also, like anything, when it is fresh and new, it is much more exciting. How do you keep it so exciting 10, even 20 years later? Have we got a bit too "used " to it now?

The sound of "Techno" has changed a lot in recent years though, and tbh I'd find it hard to find a Techno night to go to in my home city (what I think of as Techno anyways; late 90's early 00's more pounding style). There is a plethora of new Techno nights, but they are based around the new Techno scene - the slower, more minimal sounding techno. I don't know of any clubs playing harder Techno, except for the occasional one-off night. Perhaps that is why some people feel jaded with the Techno scene; they fell in love with the older Techno sound (faster, harder etc) and just can't feel the same rush from this newer, slower Techno?

That begs the question though, are such people just old moaners; stuck in the past and going on about the "good old days", or has Techno changed too much now from it's original, more underground roots? When Ibiza clubs are packed with thousands of kids wearing neon t-shirts and shades indoors dancing to "Techno" can it really be considered as underground as it was? Techno as a genre is more popular now than it has been for years, but is that still Techno, or has it sold out, and changed too much from the feeling, vibe and attitude of Techno in the past?

But what caused Techno to have to change anyway? Was it the fact that for years producers just knocked out the same tired old loops and tribal drums, to the point that people got bored of it? I know I got a bit sick of hearing the same old stuff, and drifted away a bit a few years ago (ironic that I now yearn for the good old Techno of days gone by, huh?). I did get quite into Minimal at one point and maybe that was in itself a reaction to lazy Techno producers just churning out the same old sounds we'd heard a million times before. I dunno...

[Mattias_Fridell]

There is some nice stuff around now for sure but I'd say lots of Techno lost its edge. Though I know that really soon some more heavy stuff with classic feel is coming, and even some old classics will return. I hope it might change the environment a bit more over time-

[System 47]

danny, theres a great way out of that 'what do i do with all these things i aint finished' hole.. turn them into basic tools or loops & put them on Soundcloud for nowt.. free d'loads. i done this & have recieved label ineterest. the great thing is, the ppl who approached me know nothing about me. they are interested in the music & thats it. i took the idea of complete trax & junked it after doing the loop thing in ableton & my output has jus rocketed. if i do a 'track' i feel i should make it have a start, middle & end. it should progress musically & so on & blah blah.. but when i do a 'tool' all i need is a groove & a few drops of the kick.. its psychological, but it has freed me in production.

punt it out there man & you never know who's flickin thru the web lookin for free stuff or someone new.

or give them to ppl to remix.. ive done that & had some crackin stuff back. real unexpected takes on what i originally put down. and that is such an inspiring thing.. when ppl do new things with your stuff you hadnt even considered, it makes the brain jus get on the good foot.

run it up the flag pole man.. see who salutes it :)

jus dont bin it. i'll take it all of your hands lol

[DannyBlack]

danny, theres a great way out of that 'what do i do with all these things i aint finished' hole.. turn them into basic tools or loops & put them on Soundcloud for nowt.. free d'loads. i done this & have recieved label ineterest. the great thing is, the ppl who approached me know nothing about me. they are interested in the music & thats it. i took the idea of complete trax & junked it after doing the loop thing in ableton & my output has jus rocketed. if i do a 'track' i feel i should make it have a start, middle & end. it should progress musically & so on & blah blah.. but when i do a 'tool' all i need is a groove & a few drops of the kick.. its psychological, but it has freed me in production.

punt it out there man & you never know who's flickin thru the web lookin for free stuff or someone new.

or give them to ppl to remix.. ive done that & had some crackin stuff back. real unexpected takes on what i originally put down. and that is such an inspiring thing.. when ppl do new things with your stuff you hadnt even considered, it makes the brain jus get on the good foot.

run it up the flag pole man.. see who salutes it :)

jus dont bin it. i'll take it all of your hands lol

That's a belting idea. Good thinking... I will pack it all up this weekend then if I get time. I think I might create a new soundcloud page for it. I'll send some things your way too mate. Nice one.

[SlavikSvensk]

it was more exciting in the 1990s, because it was newer, mor revolutionary and had fewer conventions. but there was also plenty of crap back then, and loads of good stuff being made now. it's just much more niche than it was.

electronic music, generally speaking, is much more institutionalized now. like most music scenes posing as social revolutions, it just ended up being a scene.

[djshiva]

it was more exciting in the 1990s, because it was newer, mor revolutionary and had fewer conventions. but there was also plenty of crap back then, and loads of good stuff being made now. it's just much more niche than it was.

electronic music, generally speaking, is much more institutionalized now. like most music scenes posing as social revolutions, it just ended up being a scene.

I don't think it was posing as a social revolution. It absolutely was one. But like most musical social revolutions, it was co-opted by capitalism and greed.

Look back through the history of music/social revolutions from jazz to rock and roll to reggae to punk rock to hip hop and it's always the same story. Youths tap into new ideas in music, build a social scene around it that challenges the mainstream, party their ****ing brains out, and then some business person realizes that there's money to be made by mass marketing not only the music but the "scene" as well. They water it down for mass consumption, and by the time it's been around a few years, there is only the slightest thread linking it back to what it was.

That doesn't devalue the reality of what it was; it just obscures it so only those interested in the roots ever bother to dig into it.

It didn't "end up" being a "scene". It ended up being a market. And that, ultimately, is what has both frustrated me, and also reminded me of why there is a necessity for a thriving underground.

That dynamic is the ultimate push/pull and the source of many frustrations, at least amongst people that I have been having this conversation with for a while. After so many years involvement, who doesn't want to perhaps make some money, travel a bit? But then you realize what that entails, what kind of commercial pusherman it can tend to make you, always promoting yourself instead of the music. Some people continue with it, others withdraw and try to find different ways to present the music and different sounds to pursue.

That, to me, is the heart of the issue. Are you in it for personal monetary gain? Or for the music and the fantastic community that can arise from music? I think it's essential to constantly scrutinize my own intentions, and I see some of that on a microcosmic scale with people I know. I think that gets lost as things get bigger, as careers get bigger, as paychecks get bigger. As does the "edge" in the music.

[SlavikSvensk]

I don't think it was posing as a social revolution. It absolutely was one. But like most musical social revolutions, it was co-opted by capitalism and greed.

Look back through the history of music/social revolutions from jazz to rock and roll to reggae to punk

how, exactly? what did raves or 90s electronic music culture change? it was a lot of fun, and felt like something really cutting edge. in some ways, it was cutting edge. but it didn't change anything big in society, or even really impact politics. reggae, for example, did. even that had an ambiguous effect on jamaican life, but it certainly shook things up in a way electronic dance music never did.

maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but in retrospect it just seems like an innovative way to blow off steam, backed by some fantastic music, and not too much else.

[djshiva]

how, exactly? what did raves or 90s electronic music culture change? it was a lot of fun, and felt like something really cutting edge. in some ways, it was cutting edge. but it didn't change anything big in society, or even really impact politics. reggae, for example, did. even that had an ambiguous effect on jamaican life, but it certainly shook things up in a way electronic dance music never did.

maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but in retrospect it just seems like an innovative way to blow off steam, backed by some fantastic music, and not too much else.

Really? Wow. Books have been written on this, so I'm certainly not going to cover it at length.

Firstly, let me qualify this with the disclosure that I don't necessarily believe that all impact is measurable in terms of "changing anything big in society" or "impacting politics". The personal is political, and to that end, a lot of my ideas (and my friend's ideas) of EDM culture are CERTAINLY anecdotal. But they seem to run pretty similar to other perceptions of earlier musical subcultures, so anecdotal or not, I feel there's merit there.

How do you measure someone's mind opening because of their exposure to people of all different walks of life? How do you measure realizing that the person next to you, while they may have different politics or ideologies, is dancing, right here, right now, to the same beat you are and that there's something intimate about that? How do you measure understanding that sometimes freedom is only found inside your head for those moments when the beat drops? These are all TOTALLY subjective, but potentially life-changing experiences. No way to measure them. No way to measure their impact on society or politics. But they're there. And I don't just say this from personal experience. I say this from many a discussion on this very topic.

You can accept that or dismiss it, but there it is.

Secondly, it's easy to look back on something like jazz and see the impact it made because history has had time to process it. Of all the subcultures I named, EDM is certainly the baby of the bunch, and as yet, I don't think we have a lot of distance to measure its impact.

Just to name a few impacts:

DIY (DO It Yourself, which wasn't invented by EDM but certainly had its impact on people and communities, both intentional and unintentional): people got off their asses and did it themselves.

Bedroom producers: within the time span of EDM we have seen technology begin its acceleration toward more simple and compact ways of being musicians. This is punk rock's "Anyone can have a guitar and form a band" ethos taken even further. Closely connected to DIY, but also it has helped push music technology to places we never dreamed of 20 years ago.

And politics? Really? The battles that have been fought over rave culture are pretty ****ing epic. But I could talk about that one all day and not even scratch the surface.

Anyhow, this is getting WAY off topic. If you want to start a thread specifically about this, though, I would be more than happy to chat about it. :)

p.s. Re: Jamaica. I don't think there are many musical subcultures comparable with Jamaica on many levels. I am not attempting to draw a false equivalence, believe me. But it does fall within the continuum of musical subcultures with impacts larger than the music, and that's why I mentioned it.

[SlavikSvensk]

Really? Wow. Books have been written on this, so I'm certainly not going to cover it at length.

Firstly, let me qualify this with the disclosure that I don't necessarily believe that all impact is measurable in terms of "changing anything big in society" or "impacting politics". The personal is political, and to that end, a lot of my ideas (and my friend's ideas) of EDM culture are CERTAINLY anecdotal. But they seem to run pretty similar to other perceptions of earlier musical subcultures, so anecdotal or not, I feel there's merit there.

How do you measure someone's mind opening because of their exposure to people of all different walks of life? How do you measure realizing that the person next to you, while they may have different politics or ideologies, is dancing, right here, right now, to the same beat you are and that there's something intimate about that? How do you measure understanding that sometimes freedom is only found inside your head for those moments when the beat drops? These are all TOTALLY subjective, but potentially life-changing experiences. No way to measure them. No way to measure their impact on society or politics. But they're there. And I don't just say this from personal experience. I say this from many a discussion on this very topic.

You can accept that or dismiss it, but there it is.

Secondly, it's easy to look back on something like jazz and see the impact it made because history has had time to process it. Of all the subcultures I named, EDM is certainly the baby of the bunch, and as yet, I don't think we have a lot of distance to measure its impact.

Just to name a few impacts:

DIY (DO It Yourself, which wasn't invented by EDM but certainly had its impact on people and communities, both intentional and unintentional): people got off their asses and did it themselves.

Bedroom producers: within the time span of EDM we have seen technology begin its acceleration toward more simple and compact ways of being musicians. This is punk rock's "Anyone can have a guitar and form a band" ethos taken even further. Closely connected to DIY, but also it has helped push music technology to places we never dreamed of 20 years ago.

And politics? Really? The battles that have been fought over rave culture are pretty ****ing epic. But I could talk about that one all day and not even scratch the surface.

Anyhow, this is getting WAY off topic. If you want to start a thread specifically about this, though, I would be more than happy to chat about it. :)

p.s. Re: Jamaica. I don't think there are many musical subcultures comparable with Jamaica on many levels. I am not attempting to draw a false equivalence, believe me. But it does fall within the continuum of musical subcultures with impacts larger than the music, and that's why I mentioned it.

it's only a social revolution if it brings lasting change, or at least has some measurable effect on society. of music based subcultures, i'd say only reggae and the hippie movement even did that. maybe punk too, but maybe not.

raves constituted a very interesting social phenomenon, for a while. again, maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but i think, taking the long view, they didn't end up having that much impact outside the people who went to them for that limited time in the 90s.

[MARK ANXIOUS]

I don't think it was posing as a social revolution. It absolutely was one. But like most musical social revolutions, it was co-opted by capitalism and greed.

Look back through the history of music/social revolutions from jazz to rock and roll to reggae to punk rock to hip hop and it's always the same story. Youths tap into new ideas in music, build a social scene around it that challenges the mainstream, party their ****ing brains out, and then some business person realizes that there's money to be made by mass marketing not only the music but the "scene" as well. They water it down for mass consumption, and by the time it's been around a few years, there is only the slightest thread linking it back to what it was.

That doesn't devalue the reality of what it was; it just obscures it so only those interested in the roots ever bother to dig into it.

It didn't "end up" being a "scene". It ended up being a market. And that, ultimately, is what has both frustrated me, and also reminded me of why there is a necessity for a thriving underground.

That dynamic is the ultimate push/pull and the source of many frustrations, at least amongst people that I have been having this conversation with for a while. After so many years involvement, who doesn't want to perhaps make some money, travel a bit? But then you realize what that entails, what kind of commercial pusherman it can tend to make you, always promoting yourself instead of the music. Some people continue with it, others withdraw and try to find different ways to present the music and different sounds to pursue.

That, to me, is the heart of the issue. Are you in it for personal monetary gain? Or for the music and the fantastic community that can arise from music? I think it's essential to constantly scrutinize my own intentions, and I see some of that on a microcosmic scale with people I know. I think that gets lost as things get bigger, as careers get bigger, as paychecks get bigger. As does the "edge" in the music.

that's a really good post shiva. i've seen this with every single dance music genre i've ever been involved in - from chicago house, acid to certain corners of techno itself. the thing is, techno has always been the genre that has managed to somehow pull itself away from disappearing into the mainstream entirely. it reinvents itself and moves too fast. also the anarchic and ant-establishment ideals that most techno music creates are perhaps it's strongest positives and what has kept it here for so long...

[basslinejunkie]

techno has moved on,even forward you could say. just because also of techno now has slowed in tempo, i would hardly say ' it has lost its balls ' personally i think the slower something is the darker it becomes.

this place needs to move on from hard techno and realise there is a whole host of music and artists out there that are still making amazing music.

[teknorich]

Basslinejunkie, do you still go clubbing any more mate? Do you find the new, slower Techno as exciting on the dancefloor? I'm not criticising, but from conversations with other Techno heads here in Liverpool over the last couple of years, people just don't feel the "Nu Skool Techno" in the way they did the older stuff. It is great for home listening, even for house parties, and the production values are WAY higher than they were in the past, but at the same time it just feels less exciting and gives less of an adrenalin rush than it did when it was 10-15BPM faster. When you are on the dancefloor, you want to get lost in the adrenalin and the excitement of the music, not stand there and admire the high production quality, stroking your chin...

I think maybe we did this to the scene ourselves, with too many drugs, music going too fast and too low quality, just mindless pounders for the pill heads, but what we have nowadays feels like a shadow of Techno's former spirit and vibe on the dancefloor.


Mattias said: "Though I know that really soon some more heavy stuff with classic feel is coming, and even some old classics will return. I hope it might change the environment a bit more over time " which I totally agree with. I think the success of Minimal and the newer Techno sound was in part a result of failings in the old Techno scene, but I am hopeful for a resurgence to some extent of the old, more underground, harder Techno vibe. I don't want 150BPM mindless distorted rubbish for kids on drugs, but I also don't want 125BPM trendy techno for ibiza posers. There's a happy medium somewhere between, and I think that Techno will find it's place in there and grow again.

[teknorich]

And before anyone says it, it is not just an issue of speed! It's far too easy when people criticise modern Techno to just say that they want nothing but hard-assed pounders and they are speed freaks (repeat ad nauseum) but that is missing the point.

Yes, Techno nowadays is slower, but it is also not as hard a sound, not as agressive or pumping, and it doesn't excite a dancefloor the way it used to. You compare Beyer's output now to his older releases, and they just don't have anywhere near the same energy or vibe to them. Techno felt so much more intense in the past than it does now, and that is not just cos it was faster. The drums were bigger, fatter, harder, louder, the tracks were more attacking, and you didn't get compressed bongos and white noise hisses on every damn tune!

I've never had so much high quality home listening Techno in my life, and I am genuinely pleased with that, but I have also never found the Techno dancefloors so lacklustre and uninteresting, and that I am not at all happy about. There's a happy medium to be reached, and the sooner the better in my opinion.

[basslinejunkie]

Basslinejunkie, do you still go clubbing any more mate? Do you find the new, slower Techno as exciting on the dancefloor? I'm not criticising, but from conversations with other Techno heads here in Liverpool over the last couple of years, people just don't feel the "Nu Skool Techno" in the way they did the older stuff. It is great for home listening, even for house parties, and the production values are WAY higher than they were in the past, but at the same time it just feels less exciting and gives less of an adrenalin rush than it did when it was 10-15BPM faster. When you are on the dancefloor, you want to get lost in the adrenalin and the excitement of the music, not stand there and admire the high production quality, stroking your chin...

I think maybe we did this to the scene ourselves, with too many drugs, music going too fast and too low quality, just mindless pounders for the pill heads, but what we have nowadays feels like a shadow of Techno's former spirit and vibe on the dancefloor.


Mattias said: "Though I know that really soon some more heavy stuff with classic feel is coming, and even some old classics will return. I hope it might change the environment a bit more over time " which I totally agree with. I think the success of Minimal and the newer Techno sound was in part a result of failings in the old Techno scene, but I am hopeful for a resurgence to some extent of the old, more underground, harder Techno vibe. I don't want 150BPM mindless distorted rubbish for kids on drugs, but I also don't want 125BPM trendy techno for ibiza posers. There's a happy medium somewhere between, and I think that Techno will find it's place in there and grow again.

think your missing my point. i hate 'minimal' as much as anybody else. i would not class this as new skool techno.in my opinion, its just dressed up house.

others though,people i do respect ( the kind of people numeric has mentioned ) have realised that they need to adapt and do something different. and i think it takes more balls to do this than just keep pumping out the same old stuff,the stuff you know people will like.

for me, this is the most exciting time in many a year for techno and my own personal tastes.there is just so much good stuff around at the moment.

[DannyBlack]

for me, this is the most exciting time in many a year for techno and my own personal tastes.there is just so much good stuff around at the moment.

link me up man, I want in on the excitement.

[teknorich]

Fair enough. Tbh, I think people like Mike Denhert, Peter Van Hoesen, Marcel Fengler, Shed etc are a lot closer to minimal than you might like to think (they have literally all been featured on the mnml ssgs page, and they are very popular with minimal heads) but they are definitely Minimal Techno rather than Minimal house, which is a big difference.

What do you think it was that made artists like them decide they needed to adapt and do something different, to make this new slower sound of Techno? Was it that Techno was stuck in a rut, churning out the same old sounds? Had people got used to it, and bored by it?

[Numeric]

Fair enough. Tbh, I think people like Mike Denhert, Peter Van Hoesen, Marcel Fengler, Shed etc are a lot closer to minimal than you might like to think (they have literally all been featured on the mnml ssgs page, and they are very popular with minimal heads) but they are definitely Minimal Techno rather than Minimal house, which is a big difference.

peter van hoesen - quartz no1

peter van hoesen - strip it, boost it (entropic dub)

to me, that sounds like just techno my old friend, no need for any minimal tags

[Numeric]

techno has moved on,even forward you could say. just because also of techno now has slowed in tempo, i would hardly say ' it has lost its balls ' personally i think the slower something is the darker it becomes.

this place needs to move on from hard techno and realise there is a whole host of music and artists out there that are still making amazing music.

totally agree, there's so much quality techno around at the moment

these moaning threads really make me laugh